


Bittersweet Release

by ProblematicPines



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Depressing, Depression, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Missing Persons, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Triggers, this is not a happy story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 05:54:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17543969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProblematicPines/pseuds/ProblematicPines
Summary: It was currently half past eight at night.Sammy had gotten up an hour ago, just to make himself a breakfast of bitter, acrid liquor and some dry bread. It had mould growing on it, but picking it off had been no issue.If Sammy got sick, who cared? Certainly not him. Certainly not Lily. Certainly not anybody. The one person that had ever really cared for him had gone, and if he followed the same route, nobody would bat an eye.Nobody would care.





	Bittersweet Release

Sammy sucked at the lip of his bottle of Jack Daniels (the worst possible name for a drink), even though it had long since been emptied. But he still tongued at the cold glass, as though keeping at it with his bloated tongue would bring more of the bitter liquid to scorch his throat and wash away his pain, if momentarily. But it remained empty, reeking of alcohol and making his already-upset stomach churn. Sighing haggardly, Sammy let the empty bottle drop to the floor with a loud bang. It rolled a few feet away, stopping at the back of the couch. He lay there, slumped against the wall that separated the living area of his apartment from the kitchen.

Sammy was a stinking, unwashed mess. The apartment wasn’t much better. It had fallen into disarray due to his lack of care for the place. The windows were shut, the curtains drawn; no natural light got in, and if it weren’t for the digital alarm clock changing its neon green numbers every minute, the disheveled radio host would have had no idea if it were daytime or nighttime.

It was currently half past eight at night.

Sammy had gotten up an hour ago, just to make himself a breakfast of bitter, acrid liquor and some dry bread. It had mould growing on it, but picking it off had been no issue.

If Sammy got sick, who cared? Certainly not him. Certainly not Lily. Certainly not anybody. The one person that had ever really cared for him had gone, and if he followed the same route, nobody would bat an eye.

Nobody would care.

Nobody would even question it if he blew his brains out right now. And he’d contemplated that thought all too many times already. He’d even pressed the barrel of the pistol to his temple, but had pussied out at the last moment and threw it across the room and tucked himself into a ball to cry into his knees like the spineless, cowardly faggot he was.

Because that’s all he was, really. When he thought about it. When he really dug deep and clawed out the worst traits of himself to shape his life around.

He was a coward; he was too afraid to pull that trigger and just end it all with a deafening POP! and a cascade of crimson across the wall behind him.

He was weak; he had resorted to the bottle, just like every other sad sack of shit before him. Instead of actually seeking some help like a rational human being, he had decided to go the easy way out and hope to drink himself to death.

He was a faggot; a raging, self-loathing, cock-sucking homo that had fallen head over heels for a guy that had abandoned him, just like everybody else had.

_“It’s not like that.”_

That’s what the rational part of Sammy’s brain would have said. It would have told him that it wasn’t his fault that Jack had vanished all those months ago. It wasn’t even Jack’s fault that he had disappeared either. But that small, logical part of him had long since been crushed by the agonising, mentally-destructive weight of his own despair.

Sammy was almost certain that the majority of his body mass was alcohol and misery.

Sammy was hazily broken out of his stupor by the low grumbling of his stomach. Exhausted, he looked down. Bloodshot eyes, ringed with bags so heavy and so dark it made him look like a member of the living dead, peered at his stained, stinking clothes. They were dark with discoloured stains from spilled alcohol and spewed vomit that didn’t quite reach the toilet bowl, as well as blood from where he’d clawed and bit at himself in a vain attempt at tearing out an artery without setting a razor to his flesh.

Filthy, trembling fingers reached out and took a hold of the hem of his smelly shirt, and pulled it upwards. His stomach was painfully, unhealthily thin; the protruding ribs weren’t much help either.

Tiredly groaning at his own incompetence when it came to feeding himself, Sammy tried getting to his feet, using the wall behind him as support. But his knees gave way and he ended up falling back down, crashing to the floor and sprawling out. The floor was cold, but covered in sticky residue left behind by spilled beer and filthy, unwashed clothes. Sammy licked at the floor, trying to taste whatever remnants of booze that remained.

It was disgusting, it was depressing, and it was desperate.

But Sammy couldn’t give a fuck anymore. If somebody came in now and caught him doing this, he wouldn’t even look in their direction.

_“Not like anyone will be here to check up on you.”_

What a waste of life he was.

Jack deserved better than having a spineless drunkard like him.

Instead of actively searching for his fiance, he’d resorted to slurping down bottle after bottle of booze, can after can of cheap gas station beer, and howling into his pillow at night. He hadn’t even contacted Lily yet, but she would have only confirmed how pathetic Sammy was by berating him and beating him down into even more of a snivelling, miserable wreck than he already was.

The thought sparked up a flare of sudden unbridled fury in Sammy, and with a throat-tearing snarl, he snatched up the empty bottle of Jack Daniels and hurled it at the wall across the room. It hit with a deafening CRASH and jagged shards flew in all directions. Some of them bounced dangerously close to Sammy, and when a particularly large and serrated piece clattered to his feet, it only took Sammy a moment to snatch it up and hold one tip over the skin of his wrist.

_“Just apply some pressure. Just a little bit. Then it will all be over. You’ll get to see Jack again. You’ll get to be free of all this pain. Just do it. Do it, you coward. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.”_

Sammy pushed down, but only enough to leave a small red prick in the skin. He tossed the shard away, and instead curled himself up into a ball, whining and blubbering ugly sounds into his filthy hands.

He prayed for Jack to come back, for Jack to come home and take him in his arms as he was (a bloody, sniveling degenerate) and press gentle kisses to his cheeks and wipe away his tears and tell him that he would never leave him again.

He kept his eyes on the front door of the apartment door that they once shared.

But it never opened.

  
  


\--

  
  


Sammy hadn’t touched a bottle of Jack Daniels in almost three years. Not even at parties or social gatherings that included alcohol of any kind as a beverage. Because he knew that if he drank one drop, then he wouldn’t stop until he was blackout drunk and bawling his eyes out and threatening to end his own life.

But now, as he sat in another apartment that he was sharing with another man that had shown him more love and compassion than he deserved, he found himself chugging generously on a heavy bottle he’d somehow managed to purchase. Despite his own self-control, Sammy had given in to temptation and sought bittersweet release in its throat-scorching embrace. He had given in like how he’d done so before.

He had proved how he was always going to be a coward that gave in, even when he had vowed he would never let himself give in so easily again.

Yet here he was, balled up on Ben’s couch and simultaneously drinking while sobbing uncontrollably to himself.

But he never once closed his eyes.

Because if he did, then he would see them again.

Perdition Wood, with its towering black trees illuminated by the shimmering rainbow lights that threatened to swoop down and claim him and take him away, away from here, away from Jack.

The Devil’s Doorstep, with its gaping black mouth leaking inky shadows that heaved and pulsated and bulged out of its jagged opening, whispering and screaming and begging him to just  _"Come inside, everything will be fine”_.

Jack, with his tearful eyes and bloody mouth silently screaming Sammy’s name as he was dragged away by the shadows as they laughed and keened and cackled in shrieking, inhumane horrors, knowing how they were tearing his heart out and crushing it in front of him.

Sammy never slept.

All he did was drink.

Because if he slept, then they would invade his mind and make him feel smaller than ever.

They had him right where they wanted him, and they would only wear him down and ruin him even more from now on. Nothing could get better for him. No matter how much Ben insisted that they would, and that he wouldn’t give up on Sammy no matter what, Sammy knew that it was all just a lie to make him feel better about a hopeless situation.

If Sammy had already given up, why was Ben holding on to such a small shred of hope? It wasn’t like sheer will was gonna bring Jack back from the void.

He was stuck there, and the sooner Sammy accepted it the better it would be for himself, the better it would be for Ben, the better it would be for Lily, the better it would be for everyone. The sooner he just bit the bullet and accepted that Jack was never gonna share a day with him again so long as he was still breathing, the sooner he could move on and take that fateful walk off the mountainside path that snaked up to the radio station he hadn’t been to in months.

It was just like how it was three years ago. Back when Jack vanished, with his car empty and the doors left hanging open for the creeping shadows of the approaching dusk to slink into and take refuge in among its worn leather seats and abandoned luggage. Sure, the apartment was different and Sammy had physically changed (his hair had grown, his beard had turned from messy stubble into a beard, and he had gained some amount of weight), but mentally, he was still the same scared, blubbering burden he always had been.

How Ben could tolerate living with such a pathetic excuse of a human being was far beyond Sammy’s capability of understanding.

Speak of the Devil.

Sammy heard the front door open, followed by familiar footsteps coming down the hallway into the living area. Even without craning his head around to see who it was, Sammy knew that it was Ben. His presence was unmistakable, but not even he could break through the heavy veil of despairing darkness that cloaked his mind in a weighted, impenetrable fog that whispered cruel taunts and egged him on to just run to the balcony and hurl himself over the railings onto the concrete below.

At least as a splatter of gore on the ground he couldn’t be considered a burden for anybody anymore.

“Sammy?” Ben inquired, voice low with concern. “You okay?”

Sammy didn’t respond. He was curled up into the nook of the couch, cradling the bottle of booze close to his chest as his heart hammered away beneath his unwashed shirt as hot tears gushed down his sore, blotchy cheeks and soaked his beard. He tried suppressing a sniffle that threatened to escape, but in doing so he ended up choking up and gurgling out a deplorable sob as mucus ran down his face, mingling with his tears and saliva.

_“B-Bennnn...I-I-”_

He tried to blubber out some kind of response, but Ben got the message without even speaking. He just dropped whatever grocery bags he’d been carrying (Sammy absently noted the rustling of bags hitting the floor and their contents spilling everywhere) and headed straight for the couch. Ben sat down close to him, close enough for their thighs to touch. For a moment, the two of them sat there, Sammy blubbering away and Ben just silently looking at him, concern and pity on his face and tears pricking his eyes.

Slowly, tentatively, Ben reached out a hand, and took hold of the bottle Sammy was clinging to for dear life. For a second, Sammy considered yanking it away from his grasp and chugging it to its bottom in the confines of his bedroom (that he hadn’t entered in at least a week, too afraid to be constrained to a bed he dearly wished to be sharing with somebody whose body heat would warm him up and make him feel safe and secure). But when he saw the pleading look in Ben’s eyes, and noticed the quiver of his lip, he relented.

Sammy released the bottle, and Ben gently eased it out of his trembling hands. He screwed the lid back on, and hastily set it down on the floor, far enough way for him to notice if Sammy made a move for it.

But the bottle was the last thing on Sammy’s mind. With a choked wail of despair, the older man threw his arms around Ben, sobbing into his shoulder and choking out heartbreaking sobs that he was certain were loud enough for their neighbours to take note of. Ben, instead of being repulsed and pushing him away and telling him to “Man up” like anyone else would, hugged him. Sammy wasn’t hugging Ben; he was clinging to him like he had clung to the bottle.

Like the acrid alcohol that made his stomach churn and his throat grow hoarse and burn like it was being shredded by sandpaper, Sammy needed Ben to keep him grounded, to keep him in this plane of existence. Ben’s tears soaked Sammy’s shirt much like how Sammy’s own were thoroughly drenching Ben’s shoulder, but in that moment, neither of them cared.

 _“I-I-I want-Jack to-to come hooooome,”_  Sammy bawled, sounding all the more like a dying animal.

“I know,” Ben murmured, trying to be heard over Sammy’s heart-wrenching sobs and loud, wet sniffling. “I know. We’re gonna bring him home. I promise, Sammy.”

A tiny glimmer of light pierced the darkness enveloping Sammy. It was bright, and golden, and was called “Ben Arnold”, and was of average height and medium rage, and told him corny jokes and was way too passionate about all the wrong things. But the light carried hope with it; the hope that Jack could come home, that Jack could be returned to Sammy and the two of them could kiss and cry and collapse into one another’s arms and vow to never leave one another’s sides ever ever again for as long as the two of them lived.

Sammy wasn’t entirely sure whether he fully believed Ben yet, but as the light illuminated some twinkle of gold that had been invisible to Sammy before as he drowned in a bitter ocean of tears and liquid despair, he found himself pouring all of his heart and soul into what he’d just been said.

_“I promise.”_

**Author's Note:**

> This was likely one of the most heavy-hitting and depressing Fics I've ever written.  
> I decided to even things out; my last KFAM Fic was one based around the happy, carefree aspect of Sammy and Jack's relationship prior to Jack's disappearance.  
> This one details how Sammy spirals into a deep, unfortunate depression following his fiance's disappearance. It was mentioned in the podcast how Sammy suffers with nightmares following his encounter in Perdition Wood with the shadows from the void, but I think Sammy also dealt with alcoholism and serious issues with self-loathing. Somebody as mentally tormented and hurt as Sammy would definitely seek respite from his pain in alcohol, and even if it's not the best coping mechanism, it eases the agony a little bit and makes him feel as though things aren't quite as bad as they seem.  
> But when the harsh reality hits, everything is worse by tenfold.
> 
> But Ben is there to make sure Sammy stays on the right track. Nobody was there for Sammy the first time, but now that somebody is determined to never let him feel like that again, there is hope for the future.  
> Hopefully, in time, Sammy and Jack can be reunited, and Sammy can learn to appreciate life once more.


End file.
